The economy of the animal kingdom, considered anatomically, physically, and philosophically

발행: 1846년

분량: 540페이지

출처: archive.org

분류: 미분류

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liappy in observation than in the penetration Os causes :' Where- fore it Was not his province to discover experimental facis, butio elicit the trullis portaining to those discovered by others. In the selection os authors and passages he has SheWn a good discriminating poWer; the formur being authorities stili, and thesa8Sages, pregnant With matter that can suffer but litile injury

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as the WOrti proeeeds; an evidence Os increased and increasingrichness in capital inseretices and axioms. On the Other hand, the Whole os the derivative, explanatory and controversial matteroccurs in the Way Os notes underi ying the Analysis, and form-ing a Commentary on iis vario us clauses, but vhicli is relativelycontracted in comparisOn With the corresponding portion of the Economy,V and becomes more and more brief to the end of the volume: indicating again an incrense of poWer On the Ruthor's part to Organige his materials into principies.

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cera treated os, and the severat amounts of their ossices, intoone sum, and draWing a line underneath it; that is to say, of reducing and connecting the scattered ideas of particulars, unditie vagiae and laint notions, into a single and generat idea, justin the fame manner as the peritonaeum reduceS and Connectes

the functions of the viscera of the abdomen .' ' This idea offraming books upon the modet of the subjecis discussed, hasbeen carried further, We belleve, by the celebrated French associationist, Charios Fourier: doubiless it is the germ os a ne method in literature, by Whicli the analogical construction Os

under notice; in the nexi place, simply to enumerate itS USOS, Common and proper; and afterWard S, to recur to them, and consider and explain them in detail; and to confirm them byexperimentat evidence in the notes or commentary.V' We arethus particular in tracing these tesser methods, because they area modet for imitation in the deliveru of the sciences.'

and appliances, and we ΠOW turn to certain other prerogative8 of his Writing S. Swede borg's doctrines are intimately scientisic as opposedio metaphysical, and physical as distinguished Dom mathematical; he never Wanders Dom the positive and the concrete. This has occasioned the learned to consider him a materialist. We, on the Other haud, claim him as a student of existetice; and are bold to say, under Whatever designation he may come, that he steors clear at ali evenis both os sensualism und ideal

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n single Step beyond visibio phenomena sor the sine of the truth; and others prosor to drown their ideas in the occuli at

not be acceptablo. For, in regard to the former, it asseris, that the truth is to bu sought far beyond the range of the eye; nud, in regard to the latior, that in ali the nature of things there isno Such thing as an occult quality; that thero is nothing but is

ei ther atready the subject of demonstration, Or capable of be- coming SO.' ' Aud he notther prostrates experieuce belare termS like those Who declare the mind to be material or immateriai, Without first procuring a scientsc conception Os What matter is); nor dentes any portion Os experience through Jove of System, tograsp unlairly at that unity Whicli reason destres. His doctrineis too robust, und too descriptive os creation, to inculcate a Daros matter, to Whicli ait things gravitate, and into Whicli theysubside at last. For matter is the ultimate term of a graduated Series of forms: a necessity physical and philosophicat; a closing 1 aut, Mithout Whicli creation Would have ΠO eXistence; an ultimate passive, Without Whicli nil the passives and actives in the Universe must peristi. Τhe distinction belween the mitin and matter lies not in esse ce but in form: for ali things have but

and philosophy. Malter is a forni recipient of use frOm the Divine Sun : a permanently transitive faci, Whicli is constantly receiving and constantly giving, Without Self- appropriation. The mind is a form recipient of lise; of use to Other minds, and of use to itself; thorefore a personality in Whicli the creative estiuenee is appropriated and enjoyed. Το say that the mind is materiat, is by material bo implied coincidence in predicates

With inorganic nature, amounts to affirming that the Word mitidhas been framed DOm no experience of peculiar conditions; that reaSOning, Willing, imagination, &c., are identical With chemicalassinity, molecular attraction, or Some of the other laWs Witti vhicli dead nature familiariges iis; in Other Words, that the Organigation Of the brain, Whicli is anatomicatly the mind, is repented throughout creation. For organigation is forin, and

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ture, are form and condition in matter, and are the basis os iis various qualities. But no One Will assirin that a stone has cortical substances, Or medullary fibres, Whicli are necessary to the organigation of the mind. In this, We eXpress ΠΟ Speculative opinion, but a scientisic faci; to Wit, that tho fori of thomiud is different Dom every other form; and is it is to botermed materiai, then let us know What matter is over and above iis forni, in order that We may rightly understand the predication. Untit this is the case, and so long as We maintain the definition of matter gi ven by SWedenborg, vig., chemicat formas distinguished Dom organie, We must maintain that the mindis bodily, but assuredly Πot materiai. Great confusion has undoubtedly been introduced by regard- ing body as the fame With matter. For body is the necessaryultimatum of each plane os creation, and thus there is a spiritual body as Weli as a natural body, and by parity of saci thereis a spiritual Worid as Woli as a natural Worid: but matter is limited to the lowest plane, Where Mone it is identical Withbody. There is no matter in the spiritual Worid, but there is body notWithstanding, or an ultimate form Whicli is tess livingthan the interior forms; Whicli is the solid in relation to the fluid; the fibro and tho fh in and the membrane relatively to theliving blood in iis various degrees: or to speali philosophicatly, whicli is the generat and the particular as contradistinguished

om the universat and the singular ' Τhe presence of space and time in that degree of fixation, and With those laWs, Whichthey have in nature, is essentiat to the existence of matter, butbody may and does exist either With that presen ce Or Without it . Time not determined by the revolution of the planet, and Spacenot measured by OutWard Objecis, are time and space unfixed om their known conditions in nature. Such time and space exist in the mitid, and tho mitid exisis in them, 1or the oneposition is as triae as the other;) but here they are CO- determinod by the state of the mitin us to understanding and Willing,

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Whicli are the successive und simultaneous of the spirit; and body exisis in them unow as indestructil,ly as in the loWest Sphere: obeying, hoWever, their conditions, and assuming their plasticisy; as in Dature it obeys the laWs, und ansWers to the fixity, of natural space and time; i.e. of mechanics, Whicli iSthe last truth of nature. It is Wrong there re to attempt totranscend the suci os embodiment; the liope is mistahen that WOuid lead us to endeavor thus aster pure spirituality. The Wayto the pure spirituat is the moral, and the morat delighis to exhibit itsolf in actions, and body is the theatre Os actions, and by consequenee the mirror and continent of the spirituat: in Whicli manner We may understand that large saying of SWeden-borg, that the real body is in saci the universat foui.' We are fully consciolas that the author's Chapter on tho

thought to be inviolably sublime. It may possibiy cause them great indignation to hear SKedenborg speahing of the foui; mapping out iis attributes With clear lines und plain Words; sho Ning that it is inseparably the essetice of the body and thebody Dom that essetice: that iis fortia is the one Which wealready kno K better than any other: that it is both a spirituous fluid and the human form; and that the humati forin is theessenee of the man, and the bOdy, and the morality, ali at oneand the samo time; and that physios and metaphysius and

stituent trullis. So much absonce of d ubi as ali this implies, So litile metaphysic Wit, so flender a belles in the identity of tho

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ΜΕΤΑ PHYSIC S IN PERI L.

E regno hoc Subterraneo . . . enitens accurro . . . facie mea umbris et fumis

fodinarum fortassis inductu. Opera Philosophica, V vol. iii., dedicatio, ad fin.)

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lviii

solving it into a linown quantity, and was stili employed uponthis equation to tho end of his philosophical career, constantly mensuring the formula against Desii acquisitions of experience. Wo do not deny that in this he has come very short of the trullis declared in his theological Works. The vieW in the oneis to tho actuat vision in the other, as hypothesis to theo ,

Or as speculation to practioni truth. Y et even as a philosopher, his vlew of the foui is the most concrete ever propounded. Andthe reason is, not only that forin and body in a sense in Whichial understand them) are recogniZed as predicates of the foui; but that inductions are talien Dom real lise, DOm experienee of human society, Whicli is the greatest exhibition os psychologicalcausos and effecis. This sield supplies him with tho bost indications and illustrations, so that ever and anon, While busted Withphysios, Me pa8S With him almost unaWares into a rich vein offundamentat humanity. Herein, by redeeming psychology Domabstractions, and se opting physics With morat lise, he has, in

Senitered sentences, done more to reconcito the foui With thobody than his most ambitious predecessors. For thus theworkings of the body became dramatio; and the Way Was prepared sor that further entrance into experience Which he Was soSOOn to enjOy, When man, and good and evit, Were ali to him, and other regards dropped heavily aWay Dom his care, as thematorial body Dom the riseri spirit. Nevertheless, it is Only in One Or tWo passages that heappears to know that the soni is in a Worid beyond the confines of nature: but for the rest he defines it as a naturalsubjeci, accommodated at Once to the beginning of motion audio tho reception Os life .V The lauit here is not an error but ashort-cOming; for he rightly conceives the foui With predicatos analogous to those of nature; Which being the case, it needsan OutWard sphere to dWeli in; a b odily spiritual World, Whichis nature no longer. Is he falled of this ultorior truth, sandwe dare not aver that he did,) it is nos that he was too materiai,

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otherWise, before the eyes Os his spirit Were Opened, and he Wasshewn that not abstraction but sense, not renSoning but eX- perience, is the basis of the spiritual as Weli as of the naturalsciences: at ali evenis that is this basis be not given, spiritualScience can be nothing more than an enumeration os occultprincipies, respecting Whicli it is impossibio to decido whether they are entia rationis, or correlates of reat existeneo. These Wortis hoWever possess some advantages in virtve Osthe above limitation.' In faci they constituto the Only naturaltheology extant; the only vieW in Whicli the fame truth is shewnto be mechanical in nature, Whicli is spirituat in the spiritualWorid, and divine in the Word of God. For such a vieW, and no leS8, is natural theology. They shew that nature exhibiis themariis of transcendent intelligetice ; that could she be supposedio aut of herself, she Would deserve credit for the highest visdom. That the exactest poWer of promoting ends is ascribable to herSub Stanees, processes and laWs; and that the molecules of matter, and the organic unities of living beings, operate With a Wisdomwhicli is tho fame With that of the human minii, though notselneo Seious; Whicli is most intellectual, but not self-intelligent. For the instincts of the liver, Or of any globule of blood, Rre RS aetuat, unerring and Wonderfui as the instincts of animais. SO, too, the play of combination and assintly bet Woen chemicat Substances . For this reason it Was, that SKedent, Org abstainedfrom gaining his deductions, or confirming them, Dona thehigher grotan d; sor hero it Was his alm to siles, that nature herseli is so Ordered, as to serve life as an instrumental cause, subject to the will of the intelligent being, Who uses her topromote ends by effecis.V Αnd thus Wo perceive that the universe is constructed sor promoting the en iis of Divine froviden ce; so that the bon4 sde necessities of man, spiritual and naturat, could they be ascertained, Would bo an unfesting organon OfkHOWledge respecting What nature cati yield, and What in due time she Will yiuid. For Whatevor is living in man, is dead, obelsant and mechanical in naturo. Sho is the realigation ofuit thought; the willing moans os ali principies; the instrument

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natura, nihil incredibile existimare de ea.V And we may also admit With Swedonborg, that nature is Ordered SO Supremely, that she malles nimost as much demand upon Our faith as

miracles them Selves.'

Such is a triae view of nature; and such a vies is the last admission Whicli science can malle, he re offering itself up onthe stiri ne os natural theology; and SWedent, org made it very fully, nos only on bellais os natural theology, but as an earnest of his Worthiness to see further, and to know more, of the Endsos creation, and of the Ways of GOd. It is no objection to the Ove vieW, is certain persons malle it the boundary of thoirthoughis, and ruta into a Strong athei Sm, in Whicli nature, or the

spite the marvellous Workings and the exactitude of the worid, nature herseis is dead, and Without the continuod influx of divino lise, Would Deither move, nor brenthe, nor be. Another important use of the spirituat naturalism of these mortis, lies in the faci, that it demonstrates What SWede borgys education Was, and excludes metaphysical glosses DOm the subjects of the foui and the spiritual Worid, When they are trestted in his theological Writings. There, as here, the basement is common Sense Rud generat experience. There, as here, the iniud is in contact With things, no metaphysic veil or doubi interpos-ing. The Author's senses never fee through doctrines, althoughby doctrines he looks With armed aud sharpened vision throughthe senses. He terminates en quiries With the investigation ofexistenue in the universal sphere; While the metaphysicians too osten begin With this prodigious insit. His education WRS SOme-What as sollows. By ample instruction and personat remarii helearni the clites facts of the natural Worid, and perceived in them a philosophy reaching almost to the heavens, but strictly terminated in matterV at the loWer end. Aster this, his spiritual senses Were opened, and again by ample instruction and personat remarii he learni the generat facts of the spiritualworid, and the Word of God Was uti lded to him as thus pre-

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